Shakira has had kenough with the talk about the Barbie movie.
The singer opened up in a recent interview about how her two sons responded to seeing the feminist flick (spoiler: she said they “absolutely hated it”) and her concerns about emasculation in today’s culture.
On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by Daily Mail columnist Maureen Callahan to discuss Shakira’s heterodox comments and the importance of standing up for men and boys.
Barbie Backlash
Shakira is on the cover of the April issue of Allure magazine. The feature is titled “Shakira’s She-Wolf Feminism” and focuses on how the Grammy winner has offered “a masterclass on how to transform pain into world domination.”
Despite the ‘girl power’ headline, writer Patricia Alfonso Tortolani was left to grapple with what she termed “the Shakira Paradox” because the Colombia native gave what is now being considered a controversial answer to a question about the box office smash Barbie.
According to the article, this is how the conversation went:
Now, I can’t help but ask a question that’s been on my mind since we began this conversation, “Did you watch the movie Barbie?”
“I watched it, yeah.” Long pause.
“And?”
“My sons absolutely hated it. They felt that it was emasculating. And I agree, to a certain extent. I’m raising two boys. I want ’em to feel powerful too [while] respecting women. I like pop culture when it attempts to empower women without robbing men of their possibility to be men, to also protect and provide. I believe in giving women all the tools and the trust that we can do it all without losing our essence, without losing our femininity. I think that men have a purpose in society and women have another purpose as well. We complement each other, and that complement should not be lost.”
“Just because a woman can do it all doesn’t mean she should?”
“Why not share the load with people who deserve to carry it, who have a duty to carry it as well?”
Barbie became a cultural phenomenon that grossed over a billion dollars at the global box office, which, in Callahan’s view, make Shakira’s comments all the more refreshing. “I love an original take on something that the hive mind has already come to an agreement upon,” she said. “And I love someone who is sort of willing to go against that prevailing opinion.”
Her Lips Don’t Lie
Not only was Shakira willing to offer a countertake, Callahan believes there is a lot of truth to what she said. “There is something to what Shakira is saying about the way that the men were sort of portrayed as bumbling idiots,” she said. “I think Barbie was sort of attempting to be this overcorrection for girls and women.”
While Megyn admitted she still hasn’t seen the film, she said her daughter did and had similar feelings to Shakira. “Before she went, we talked about what I’d heard about the movie and what to look out for, and she came back and was like, ‘It seemed very anti-boy,'” Megyn recalled. “She’s got two brothers and a father who she loves… I’m not trying to turn my kids into activists at all, but I do want them to be aware of these messages as they’re coming across the transom.”
In fact, Megyn thinks parents who are raising both sons and daughters will be the ones to help swing the pendulum back in the other direction. “I think that moms of both girls and boys are going to be the solution, in part, to this problem,” she explained. “Because like I don’t want my daughter to get sexually harassed and I don’t want her to have her job staked on her sleeping with the boss, I also don’t want my sons to go through college having to sign consent agreements with women before they have their sexual experiences or whatever it is they choose to have in college.”
Ultimately, Megyn had a simple message for men and women who are feeling dejected by the current cultural climate. “You can fight back against this,” she said.
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Callahan by tuning in to episode 757 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.